


Little Cat

by NoelleAngelFyre



Series: The Game [4]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon/Original Character pairing, Coming of Age, F/M, Gen, Some mentions of violence, Unlikely Friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 11:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5332637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoelleAngelFyre/pseuds/NoelleAngelFyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The night we met,” she whispers, “I wanted to die.  I don’t know why, I didn’t care how, I just wanted to die.  To have it all—all of this—end.  I thought you were Death, and I was ready.  Open arms, ready to go, everything.”</p><p>Her eyes flicker up, then drop back down.  <em>No.</em>  She can’t.  She can’t look at her, not now. “When you touched me…” her voice catches tight in her throat, twisting, knotting, strangling her for a moment, “I thought…I felt…I wanted to grab you.  Hold onto you.  Climb into your lap, into your arms, and just…just stay there.”</p><p>She feels the tears, a slow-building burn at the back of her eyes. “…And I thought you might let me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Cat

**Author's Note:**

> I seem to have this thing with girl-bonding in the most unlikely circumstances....strange world we live in. Very strange. Please enjoy!

It’s raining. Again.

It’s been raining a lot here in Gotham, over the past couple weeks. Part of her wonders, albeit briefly, if somehow, someway, this is the city’s odd way of welcoming its new Don to power, with storm after storm after storm. Maybe it is. Maybe she’s a late-blooming philosopher (the thought makes her smirk). Maybe it’s just going to be a rainy season. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Selina rests her forehead against the window pane with a quiet sigh. It’s cold. The glass. The glass is cold. In here, close to the hearth, it’s not terribly cold. Heat rises and all. Downstairs, it’s a little chilly, but not really, not with so many people taking shelter within the club during the storm. She can hear the music; if she were to put her feet to the floor, she could feel the pulse of a band playing and people casting away their cares and self-respect on the dance floor.

“You seem rather downtrodden, my dear.” She doesn’t flinch at that, at _my dear_ , but only barely. She doesn’t like being anyone’s _dear_. There’s supposed to be genuine affection behind that title, not an unsubtle commentary about how she’s been adopted by Gotham’s new mafia Don, how he refers to her as a little cat, like she’s a pet when she’s not. “Does the storm bother you?”

“I don’t like the rain.” She lies, effortless, natural as breathing. Actually, she loves the rain. She loves opening her arms beneath a stormy sky and feeling the rain on her face. She doesn’t like thunder and lightning, but she loves the rain. Sometimes one comes without the other two. Today, it doesn’t. Today, it’s a trio act.

“Ah.” Penguin murmurs, too sweetly, too affectionately. “I understand. Hate to get wet, don’t you?”

Her fingers twitch against one knee. “Something like that.”

This has become a habit, as of late. This. _All of this._ Feeling suffocated, feeling degraded, feeling trapped, caged. Clawing for life, for air, for freedom, for something— _anything_. The “grin and bear it” routine throughout the day, when she is treated like a little girl trying to play with the big boys, looked after as a child, crooned at affectionately as though she’s a stray kitten plucked from the cold and wet; at night, she locks herself away, missing the streets and the cold air in her face and the sounds and smells of the city filling her senses. The thrill, the rush, the freedom…she misses it all. Most days, she blinks and looks indifferent to it all. Some nights, it’s all she can do to not cry.

Her fingertips touch the glass panes again, staring with wide eyes, looking, seeing, wanting. The thunder cracks across the sky, and she nearly recoils, hating the sound. And the rain falls on.

***

It continues raining, through the night, into the next day, and the day after that. She doesn’t sleep much. Actually, she doesn’t sleep at all. The thunder scares her. The rain invigorates her. She tosses and turns, spends hours and hours at the window before business begins and she’s no longer alone. This is the only time she can, these stolen moments when she can look out into the world, look upon the city streets she once called her home. When she first began sitting at the small table Penguin set up in his office, at the nightclub, she’d picked the seat facing a window. Penguin seems to have noticed; he now dictates everyone’s place at the table. He sits at the head, two hired guns to the right and one to the left; he places her at the end, facing the wall. She looks on, at dark wood, at shadows, and listens to the rain.

“I have a job for you, little Cat.” Penguin says, on the third day, with his sweet smile and cold eyes. She blinks at the title; beneath the table, her fingers twitch. “Someone has taken up an unfortunate residence, quite without permission, in the Falcone manor. I have provided them the ample opportunity to vacate the premises, and they responded with unwarranted violence. Now, I would like you to pay them a visit.”

 _Pay them a visit?_ Penguin has other men for this. Butch Gilzean, towering gorilla that he is, is the “go-to” man for paying people visits. Why is _she_ suddenly catching the honor? “And do what?” she asks, tone deadpan, face neutral. It’s safer to look bored than it is to look curious, let alone confused.

His thin lips smile a little wider, and he makes a quick gesture to Gilzean. The large man proceeds to hand her a gun. Not a rifle, not one of the massive semi-automatics she’s seen the others carry, but a gun all the same. She’s held a knife before— _used_ a knife before—but never a gun.

“We’re a family, little Cat.” Penguin murmurs, relaxing back into his chair. “And families always work together, don’t they?”

She nods, still staring at the gun. It’s easy to hold this thing, but using it… _how_ do you even use a gun? Is it as simple as pulling the trigger? People seem to think so. And what about a kick-back, or recoil, when the bullet goes out and into someone’s head? Is it just that easy? What does it look like when the bullet splits someone’s skull? What is she supposed to…?

“Of course,” Penguin continues, “if you’re not comfortable, I’m sure Butch would happily—”

“No.” she says, louder than she should, and then repeats her declaration at a softer, more respectable tone; she wraps her fingers around the gun and pulls it close. “I can handle myself.”

She can see the thin smirk on Penguin’s face, lips bearing icy humor, from the corner of her eye. Now is not the time to loiter and linger; she has to leave, before they doubt her any more than they already do. The gun is a heavy weight on her belt, barely concealed beneath her jacket, and the butt digs hard into her side with each step.

Walking from the club to the Falcone manor is not a trip around the corner; Don Falcone at least knew how to keep distance between himself and the ugly concrete scab that is this city. The rain makes her venture miserable, falling harder, faster, and the thunder grows louder, closer. She isn’t really clothed for this. She’s wet, and she’s cold.

She sniffs, shakes her head, and speeds up her stride. _Get a grip._ She’s not a little girl.

The manor definitely looks haunted. Big, sprawling, and dark. The iron gates, beneath these grey skies, look more foreboding than usual. Surely they don’t look like this on a normal day…? But enough. _Enough sightseeing._ She has work to do. The gun digging down into her hip only emphasizes the point.

She steps back, braces herself, and then jumps for the top, to get her grip on the bars and hoist herself over. She’s done it a million times, mastered the skill to perfection, but she’s never had a gun on her belt before. It acts as a stone weight on her hip, and she loses her balance. She does make it over the fence, but in the process, she feels one hip veer off course, right down onto one of the spiked bars. Not into, _onto_. The black iron is unforgiving, pierces through her jacket, and she cries out as it cleaves into her side.

She drops, hard, to the ground, clutching her side and rocking back and forth. Oh. _Oh, hell, it hurts!_ The blood is wet and sticky, her skin feels like it’s on fire, and when she tries to kneel, it throbs. The gun has come askew, and she forcefully pushes it to one side before it can keep digging and pressing onto her wound.

_Damn. Damn it all._

It takes five minutes for her to stand, two extra minutes to feel remotely capable of walking, and almost half an hour to get up the stone walkway and find a window to negotiate open. What normally takes her less than five seconds to accomplish now takes three minutes, with lots of pauses and breaks to catch her breath and not pass out. _Come on, Cat. Get a grip._

The house is quiet. And it’s dark. The flashes of lightning are more prominent against shadows, bursting bright, and then the thunder returns. She flinches this time, and the movement makes her quake, pain stinging sharp at her side, against her fingertips. The gun is a heavy, cold reminder at her side. _Oh, right._ She still has to shoot someone, while it feels like she a bullet wound of her own.

She slips through the kitchen window, avoiding the sink, crawls along the countertops, and attempts to slowly lower to the floor. She misses her mark and slips, again. This time, it’s with an unholy sound that will easily awaken anyone living in this place, dead, alive, or otherwise. Her knee feels bruised, and she twisted her ankle. She’s one of the—no, she _is_ the best when it comes to scaling buildings, leaping from rooftops, grace and agility and poise in every movement, and here she is, collapsed on a kitchen floor, wet, cold, bruised, a hole in her skin. Weak, pathetic, worthless.

She doesn’t recognize the tears at first, not until she sees the small puddle forming on the floor, directly below her face, and the burning sting blossoming from both eyes, and the warm trickle running down her cheeks and nose. Seeing them, seeing and recognizing the proof that she’s crying, puts a crack in the dam. The first sob claws its way up her throat and past her lips; more quickly follow.

The gun slipped from her belt when she fell; it’s laying a short distance away, easily within arm’s reach. All she has to do is take it, put it to her head, and pull. Pull the trigger, and it’ll be over. That’s it. Easy as one-two-three. It’s her only choice. She can’t go back to Penguin, not like this, not when she’s—

A figure appears in the doorway, barely distinct between the surrounding shadows and the blinding blur of tears. Whoever, whatever they are, they’re in black. She can’t make out their face. Death? The Grim Reaper? A ghost? 

Two steps forward, a flash of lightning outside, and suddenly a face is illuminated, distorted and blurred through her tears, but what she sees takes her with an icy grip of terror. Blue eyes, hollow and devoid of emotion, take in her with primal hunger, and a gun gleams silver, aimed for her head. This must be Death. Only Death could look at her with such absent pity and blatant desire for her last breath. Fine. _Fine. Just do it._ Do it and get it over with. She can’t go back. She can’t go back.

“Wait.”

 _Wait?_ She hears the voice, a woman’s, and the figure in black pauses in turn. The gun never lowers, but no bullet erupts from its barrel. Death stands there, perfectly still, and she marvels in silence. Who could possibly command Death? What ghosts live in this place, that one of them holds power over Death?

Her vision swims out of focus, enough for her to miss someone approaching; a hand brushes at her side, and she flinches, instinctively reacting to any uninvited touch, any foreign hands on her skin. The movement sends a burst of pain, like fire licking her veins, and she whimpers, fresh tears streaking down her face.

“Shhh…hush now, sweet girl. You will make it worse.”

 _Make it worse?_ Oh. Maybe she’s not supposed to cry for Death. Maybe she’s supposed to embrace Death with open arms and be carried off. _Okay._ She can do that, right? Strange though: she never expected this moment to be kind, or that she would have company. _Alone_ was the way she’d always believed she would die. Alone, lost on the streets, just another casualty to be found, eventually, and buried without mourning. 

A pale hand, slender, with long fingers, brushes across her forehead; another hand is shifting her jacket to one side, then her shirt. She hears an incoherent murmur, she blinks, and then a white face with black hair and blue eyes is looking down at her. A strange warm tingle runs across her spine. For as cold and hollow-eyed as Death is, his master is beautiful. Such a curious contradiction they are, together.

“What is your name?” Death’s master—or, rather, mistress—whispers, still stroking her forehead. This is odd. The stories always described Death as ugly, evil, cruel. The stories must be wrong. In the presence of Death and his mistress, it is kind, like a mother, gentle, caring, sweet…

“Selina.” She hears herself whisper, and then everything goes black.

***

Warm. It’s very warm. She breathes in deeply. It smells like fresh linens, and peppermint, and burning wood. She shifts, pressing her face deeper into something soft. The smell is here too. It smells good. It smells like a home, like she’s always imagined a home would be. She can hear crackling. _Crackling?_ Like leaves cracking, or twigs snapping? _No, not that…_ Wood? Fire. A fireplace.

…why does death involve a soft bed and a fireplace?

Her eyes open. She can see ivory, cream-colored sheets, all around her, beneath her cheek, tucked up to her chin. Across the room, walls of cherry-red wood reflect the firelight; a little nightstand rests close by with a lamp, tissues, and a glass of water. This can’t be right. Death is dark, grey, empty. This is…this is a home.

“She’s awake.”

That voice…does she know that voice? No, she doesn’t, but it must be Death. Cold eyes to match a cold hiss of breath, words without emotion attached. It’s Death.

 _No, it’s not._ She can feel a very distinct throb at her side, and she remembers the gate, and the post, and the way it punctured her straight through two layers of clothing. If she’s dead, why does she feel pain? And why is she here, in a warm bed, with a fireplace, safe and sound?

_You’re not dead, Cat. You’re screwed, but you’re not dead._

Trying to turn onto the other side doesn’t end so well; another hot burst of pain shoots through her nerves, and she whimpers. From the far left, she hears movement, rustling, footsteps barely audible on the carpet, and then a figure appears close by, lowering gently onto the mattress with a hand to her shoulder.

“I would not recommend that, Selina.” It takes a minute before she remembers she volunteered that information earlier, and snapping at this woman, Death’s mistress or whoever she is, for such familiarity isn’t really warranted. “You almost punctured a lung. Thrashing about is not your best course of action.”

She tosses a few loose curls from her eyes, blinks a couple times, and peers up at the face. It hasn’t changed too much from what she first saw—pale skin, blue eyes, black hair—except now it’s much clearer, with more details visible, and she swallows quietly at the sight. Slim dark eyebrows and long eyelashes frame a pair of vibrant blue eyes, pale like Penguin’s but with more life, like a set of rare gems in the jeweler’s window; black waves are loosely braided, draped over one shoulder; the woman is wearing some kind of dressing gown, dark blue, with black lace trim. She’s pretty. She’s very pretty.

Behind her, barely a pace away, she sees Death, but now she recognizes him, not as the Grim Reaper, but from rumors, warning tales spread in hushed gossip throughout the streets, and she almost wishes it was Death. Death would likely be a kinder presence than Victor Zsasz. Dressed in all black, arms folded tight across his chest, blue eyes staring on, unblinking, waiting and watching, and the hunger has not faded from his gaze. Hunger for what? Her suffering? Her death?

“Am I dead?” Selina asks. Might as well find out once and for all.

The woman smiles a little, not in a mocking way, but almost…affectionate? “No.”

She shifts her legs; they’re bare, but there’s some kind of silk rubbing against her skin. “Where are my clothes?”

“Gone.” The woman says, reaching out for the water glass and producing a small pill in her other hand. “I tried to preserve them, but some stains will not come out. Blood is one of them, and there was quite a bit after your little mishap.”

 _Okay, then._ She’s not dead, she’s in a strange house with a strange woman who patched her up, put her in clean clothes, put her to bed, and is now offering her water and what must be a painkiller. A strange woman who happens to be keeping in the company of the most notorious killer-for-hire to walk Gotham’s streets. Also, she didn’t do what she was supposed to do, and now she might as well be a dead girl walking. Two, maybe three days tops, and Penguin will probably send someone to both find her and finish the job. She is royally screwed.

A strange feeling bubbles up inside her chest, as she slowly accepts the pill with a drink of water—if it’s a painkiller, she’ll feel better; if it’s poison, at least that takes care of her problems—and leans back into the pillow. She doesn’t want anyone to come. If one of Penguin’s men comes, he’ll find this woman. He’ll hurt her. Probably kill her. She doesn’t want that to happen.

 _Why the hell do you care, Cat?_ More to the point, this woman isn’t in danger, not if she’s keeping Zsasz’s company. His reputation precedes him, in Gotham, and if she’s to feel concern for anyone, it should be for the poor sap who comes looking for _her_ and finds _him_.

“You have a name?” she mumbles, trying to get comfortable again; this silk nightgown isn’t really her style, but it’s a change from living day in and day out in the same clothes.

The woman smiles, oddly, and a matching expression lifts the corner of Zsasz’s mouth, and that’s about the time she feels it—her eyelids growing heavy, her body sinking deeper into the mattress, limp, warm, sleepy… “Sleep well, Selina.” The voice murmurs; lips kiss her forehead, briefly, and she realizes just what that pill was half a second before she drops out, again.

***

“How many times are you planning to drug me?”

She’s acting like a child, yes, sitting with her arms crossed and shoulders hunched and scowling at the woman perched with perfect posture in a chair near the end of this bed, but it’s warranted. She can’t move—tried that, didn’t work out so well—thanks to this stupid hole in her side, so she’s stuck in here until she can at least walk without dropping to the floor like a lame duck, and she has earned the right to pout.

She’s also learned the name of her strange host, and she has yet to determine whether or not the introduction puts her at ease or makes her wish the gate post had punctured something more vital and left her to bleed out on the lawn. _Iris DeLaine._ The rumors of Falcone Manor housing ghosts suddenly has more validity to it. Except the woman taking her in with those piercing blue eyes isn’t a ghost. She’s alive. Very, very much alive.

Iris shrugs one shoulder. “I have yet to decide.” She answers, voice smooth as silk. Selina blinks and her scowl deepens.

“What are you going to do with me?”

“A decision equally in need of a resolution.” Pale fingers with long nails, the kind well-manicured and clean but likewise capable of gouging out an eye, fold loosely beneath her chin; she tilts her head casually, blue eyes taking Selina in with intense scrutiny. Standing with gloved hands locked around the edge of the chair, Zsasz’s gaze drifts from the seated woman to the girl in the bed, still unblinking, still looking like a lion anticipating a good meal. She squirms a little. 

“I hear an intruder, come downstairs expecting to find a hired hitman, and instead I find a young lady sprawled across the floor,” She’ll give this woman credit for not calling her a little kid, “wet, bleeding, crying, and carrying a gun she clearly does not know how to use.”

Slowly, like a cobra without it’s hood—although that mass of dark hair could pass for one, in the right light—Iris stands and takes two steps forward. Zsasz watches, intently, devouring every movement she makes, eyes paying homage to her very existence. Selina has previously been in Penguin’s company, when he expressly and explicitly discussed his feelings over being “stood up” by the hitman, listening to his unanswered demands as to just what could keep Zsasz from fulfilling his greatest desire in life, from doing what he did for Carmine Falcone without a moment’s hesitation. She’s fairly certain she now has the answer to those questions. It’s warped and fundamentally wrong, but Zsasz looks at Iris DeLaine like a man in love. Deeply, overwhelmingly, obsessively in love.

“So,” Iris continues after a pause, “you, Selina, broke into my house, you are currently in the employee of someone who has, shall we say, made me a little grumpy as of late,” she’s not sure she wants to know how her employment history managed to find its way into this woman’s store of knowledge, “and now you have a bit of an attitude. I, on the other hand, have bandaged your wounds, given you a safe place to stay, and, more importantly, spared your life when I very easily could have shot you. That tallies up to three in my favor, and three against yours. By all accounts, I should kill you.”

“Yeah, you should.”

“You are eager for death.” A statement, not a question. She doesn’t have to answer. She does anyway.

“If I walk out that door, I’m already dead.” She slumps deeper into the pillows, three of them, all around, cushioning her in a cozy nest of comfort and sweet fresh aromas. “I can’t...” _Damn it_ , she feels the tears building again, when she didn’t want them and didn’t ask for them; she doesn’t want this woman, whoever she is, to see her cry…she doesn’t want pity, “I can’t go back. I blew this shot, and I’m screwed. If I go back, I’m dead. If I don’t, I’m still dead. He’ll come after me, find me, and put a bullet in my head.”

Zsasz makes an amused little sound, with smirk to match. She has no idea what’s so funny. Iris addresses him by name with an emphatic bite to her tone that’s almost a scolding, and then returns to her seat, one leg folding over the other, with a thoughtful expression. “Permit me,” she says, tapping fingers lightly on the armrest, “May I assume you were sent here to secure Mr. Cobblepot’s hold over the manor?”

Selina nods, dabbing furiously at her eyes. _Stupid tears…_ “At the risk of sounding rude, Selina, may I ask why he sent you?” she continues, looking genuinely puzzled and, though it could just be the blurred vision of her watery eyes, concerned. “You clearly have never used a gun in your life.”

Selina shrugs, trying for neutrality, and then curses her eyes when more tears start leaking out. “We’re a family.” She recites, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice. “And family always helps each other out.”

Zsasz rolls his eyes, openly and dramatically; Iris’ frown deepens. “So the King of Gotham now sends children to fight his battles.” She says, and her tone has changed, so much so that Selina forgets to snap at her, to tell her in no uncertain terms that she’s not a child. Zsasz, too, notices the change, and a visible ripple of anticipation passes over his face. He’s watching her, again, and he’s waiting.

Silence, a moment more, and then she exhales slowly, reclining upon the chair like it’s a throne. In that dressing gown, her dark hair framing pale features elegantly and blue eyes glittering in the firelight, she looks regal. She looks like a queen. A queen that commands shadows and even Death himself.

“Victor.” She murmurs, and Zsasz comes alive, limbs thrumming like a violin, eyes sharp and attentive. He rounds the chair and descends to one knee, in a single fluid motion, kneeling before her with the reverent humility of a servant and the hungering eagerness of a hunter. Her hand extends, ghosting a touch across his cheek; there’s a message there, one Selina doesn’t quite understand and can’t decipher, but it’s definitely heard and received.

Iris holds his gaze and says something in a foreign tongue; something European…Russian, maybe? Perhaps German? Whichever it is, Iris speaks it and Zsasz understands it. He catches the hand lingering near his face, presses a slow, ardent kiss to her knuckles, then stands and leaves in silence. The air changes when he leaves, and Selina trembles a little, for reasons she doesn’t understand.

“I imagine you are hungry.” Her strange host says, as though nothing strange or worthy of further inquiry has just occurred. She stands up, brushes herself off, and smiles. “I will prepare something for dinner. Wait here, if you please.”

 _As if I have anywhere else to be._ “Okay.”

Iris nods, thanks her, and then leaves with a rustle of silk and sweep of dark blue fabric. Selina slumps back into the pillows, stares at the ceiling, and sighs heavily. _What the hell have you gotten yourself into, Cat?_

***

Dinner is delicious. Warm soup, handmade muffins, fresh fruit, and some dark chocolate for dessert; she eats in bed, taking care to not make a mess over the bed covers, while Iris sits nearby in the chair. She is allowed to have seconds, even thirds, of the soup, and as many muffins as she can stomach without bursting. When dinner is finished, she is allowed to have a small sip of Iris’ wine. White Zinfandel. It takes good. It makes her feel warm, and content, and incredibly relaxed.

After dinner, she soaks in a hot bath for an hour. There was a bottle of bath salts on the rim; it makes the water bubbly and fills the room with the sweet scent of lavender. She burrows down into the foamy churn, deeper, deeper, senses drinking in every unfamiliar sensation. A warm cocoon of water surrounds her, tucks her in close, soothes the tension from her limbs, and nurses her wound. The bandages are gone, to get it cleaned properly. It hurts to put direct pressure on the area, but she grinds her teeth and pushes through it. Iris was very specific, clear emphasis on the need to clean it thoroughly, and Selina has had enough cuts and scrapes to know how easily these things can get infected.

It’s kind of nice, though, to have someone else care enough to tell her.

Iris comes in right as she’s finished and draining the bath. She follows instinct and curls inward, arms wrapping around her chest and legs folding up as a protective barrier. Iris smiles. It’s the kind of smile that tells her, without words, that this woman knows how it feels to hide, to have the need to protect herself from all harm—real or not—so deeply engrained that it’s a base impulse.

“Come here.” Iris murmurs, unfolding a large dark purple towel. Her fingertips brush the fabric; it’s soft. So very soft.

“I can do it myself.”

“Of that, I have no doubt.” Iris nods. “When, of course, you are capable of movement without a crutch, or at least to the extent you no longer fall out of things instead of getting out of them.”

Selina glares at her, but the point remains, Iris is right. She had to be practically carried into the bath, and she’ll have to be carried out of it. It’s humiliating, to fall this far and this low, but she supposes there are worse things. She can’t think of any at the moment, but she’s sure some exist, somewhere.

Iris is gentle, but she doesn’t coddle. Selina is allowed to dry herself , as best she can, and then Iris lifts her, as though she weighs nothing, from the tub rim and carries her into the bedroom. She is allowed to dress herself in another nightgown that’s definitely not her style and not her size, but it’s something to wear to bed and keep her warm, before she adds a fever to her list of maladies. Iris then tends to her wound. She’s pleased with the bruising, and the dark pink tinge to the wound’s exterior.

“It means you are already healing.” Iris says, while applying some cream to her skin; it stings a little, but Iris says that’s also a good sign. It means there is no infection, and the skin cells are still thriving, working towards healing, not dying off.

When she’s settled into bed, tucked beneath cream-colored sheets and a plush red duvet cover, she decides to ask Iris something, something that seems like a perfectly reasonable and rational inquiry, but even so, she can’t manage to speak about a quiet whisper. “Are you going to kill me?”

Silence follows, and she squirms deeper into the covers, apologies running unchecked through her head. She shouldn’t have asked. It was stupid. _Forget about it._ She feels tears brimming her eyes, again, and blinks them away. She’s not a child.

“No.” Iris murmurs, a cool hand running through damp curls and brushing them away. It’s a gentle touch. She wonders if this is how a mother’s touch would feel. She wouldn’t know, but surely it must be. Everyone who’s ever had a good mother always talks about their touch, how it feels, how it makes them feel safe…makes them feel loved.

“Why?” it’s an equally stupid question, but she wants to know. She should. There are plenty of reasons. She listed most of them herself. Why wouldn’t she follow through? Is she biding her time? Is she lulling this young girl who stumbled gracelessly into her kitchen, into her home, into a false sense of security, and then when she’s least expecting it—?

“You amuse me.” Iris replies, with that strange little smile that almost looks like she’s kidding but not really because her eyes are serious, and kisses her forehead. “Goodnight, Selina. I hope to see you in the morning.”

She blinks. “Where else would I go?”

“I am certain, if I have proven to be a terrible host, you will find someplace.” She smiles that odd little smile again, then stands up and steps lightly from the room. It’s about this time that Selina thinks, randomly, it’s odd how Iris always keeps her back covered. Including her arms. As warm as this house is, doesn’t she ever show some skin?

It’s one of the many questions she would love to ask, but doesn’t. She probably never will.

Zsasz is back, by morning. She hears them talking in the hallway, as she’s drifting between sleep and consciousness. She hears him say, with calm conviction and contentment on his tongue, “It’s done”. She burrows deeper into the pillows, hides her eyes beneath the duvet, and silently wonders how many men it takes Victor Zsasz to send a message.

***

By the third day, she feels strong enough to walk around. Her ankle is stiff; she has to use the walls and railings for extra support. Her side throbs violently with each step, but she has to keep going, keep moving. She isn’t a quitter. She’s not a weakling. She’s lived on the streets her entire life; she won’t be beaten by a little poke to the gut.

That “little poke” responds in kind; Iris finds her, after an hour, slumped against the stairs, curled inward, trying to not throw up. Her attempt to go down the stairs didn’t work out so well. At all.

Iris lowers down to the step beside her. Selina takes the silent pause to run eyes over the black tights and sleek leather boots, the dark teal dress that has such a unique design, from skirt to neckline, that it’s captivating. It looks Japanese, or some kind of Oriental, and every detail etched in black velvet contrasts the silk. The high neck and loose tendrils of hair work together, highlighting and framing the smooth angles of her face. She really is…very beautiful.

“Is this where you tell me to go back to bed?” Selina asks, staring down at the carpeted steps. Red carpet. There’s a lot of red in this house. She likes it. She doesn’t know why. She just does.

“No.”

“Are you going to scold me? Tell me I’m an idiot and that I should know better?”

“No.”

Selina blinks and finally looks at her. “Then what are you going to do?”

Iris returns the gaze, wearing her funny smile again. “What would you like to do?”

It continues like this, from day to day, morning and night. She won’t pretend to understand it—Selina could try to understand this woman until the day she dies (or, more likely, gets herself killed), and she’ll never get it down—but she does know enough to say she doesn’t dislike it. 

She meets little Shakta the third night, and for the first time understands how it feels to have her heart stop beating and the breath sucked from her lungs. Shakta is gorgeous. The animal version of her mistress, with all that white fur and black stripes and blue eyes, grace and power in every stride. She’s just breathtaking.

“She does not take to strangers so quickly.” Iris notes, watching with an amused smile as Shakta nuzzles Selina and arches into the hand currently rubbing the base of her skull. “You are indeed someone special, my dear.”

She finds she doesn’t mind the terms of endearment, because Iris uses them sparingly and always with genuine affection. “My dear” means exactly that, someone dear to the heart, desired company, and she’s growing to like it. She’s growing to like it quite a bit.

She watches the tiger cub devote attention to Iris, nuzzling like a child to its mother. She also watches Shakta dart forward whenever Zsasz’s footsteps approach, eagerly bounding to close the distance, and paw at his legs, purring deeply, wrapping her sleek self around his limbs. Shameless affection, a clear-cut portrait of a “Daddy’s Girl” in the animal kingdom, and the only thing more astounding than the sight of a cub bestowing such affection on a human is the way Zsasz responds in kind, crouching down to greet her, crooning at her, gliding fingers through her white fur, tending to her as though she is his firstborn child.

There are some things that become a habit; patterns that are comfortable enough to feel “normal”, like eating dinner together, enjoying a hot bath and slowly regaining enough strength to walk herself to and from the bathroom, having Iris tend to her injury each night and then put her to bed. Zsasz rarely joins them; in fact, she sees very little of him throughout the day, and even less at night. She thinks, once or twice, to ask Iris where he goes and what he’s doing. But she never does. There are just some things she doesn’t want to know.

After the fifth night, when a very slow stroll through the library prompted a bizarre request that, really, Iris should have refused, their routine comes to include reading. Iris will sit on the edge of the bed and read aloud, Selina will settle back into the pillows and listen, and Shakta will stretch out between them. Twice, she wakes up to warm sunlight through the curtains, her arm draped over Shakta, and her head using the cub as a pillow. Safe. Warm. Protected.

She’s never had anything that passes for “normal”. “Normal” isn’t in her vocabulary. “Comfortable” and “Safe” aren’t words she understands. This place is safe. This place makes her feel comfortable and warm and protected. This life is normal. She doesn’t understand it. She doesn’t dislike it, but she doesn’t understand it.

***

The seventh day begins with a cool morning breeze and pale skies. She’s strong enough to walk on her own now; her ankle doesn’t hurt anymore, and her side has stopped throbbing every time she tries to move. She slips out the back door, before there’s any sign Iris is awake—if she ever really sleeps; Selina has wondered, more than once—and makes for the gate. She doesn’t try to jump it this time; negotiating her way through the bars is much easier, and less detrimental to her health.

Nothing has changed. The world kept turning, time kept going, and Gotham didn’t fall apart while she was gone, lost to a strange island that almost feels like Paradise. The streets are still dirty, still cluttered with trash here, lost souls there; the people still cling to hope or wait for death; the police still go about their business (illicit and otherwise), crime still happens, the ugliness still outweighs the tiny glimpses of kindness and goodwill from those who haven’t learned any better. Life goes on.

She stops by the first thrift store she can find, slips in the back, finds a few things that will work, and ducks out before anyone sees her. A quick swipe from the local street vendor gets an apple for breakfast, and then she takes to the rooftops. This is her world. This is where she’s safe.

_Not anymore._

She knows better. The lie, her heightened sense of denial, isn’t enough to blind her from the cold reality glaring her in the face. She’s a marked target. A stray given one chance, one and only one, and now she’s proven herself incapable, too feral to maintain, a liability. Liabilities don’t last in this world. Loose ends have to be tied up. It’s a matter of time.

***

Keeping to the rooftops and high ledges protect her for a bit, but even a bird has to venture down from the sky, just to collect worms and crumbs for food. Even a street rat has to eat. She can resist longer than most, but even she’s human. Her belly aches, tight and wanting for food, and she has no choice. It’s a mistake, but at least she’s not surprised when she finds a gun in her face.

There is some small relief in the face she sees, just beyond the barrel aimed directly between her eyes: it’s not Zsasz. She was half-expecting it, half-waiting for the man to find her and respond in kind for returning his lady’s hospitality this way. But it’s not him. That means this will be quick, relatively painless, to-the-point, done and over. She’s heard rumors. Zsasz likes to play with his food first. The man standing here isn’t Zsasz, just another hired gun looking to cash in on her dead body. _Alright._ It could be worse. It could always be worse.

“Leave her alone.”

Her head snaps upright, eyes wide, seeking, searching, and finally finding the impossible, standing a short distance away: Iris. She’s here. Why is she here? _How did she find me?_ Why would she…?

“Not your business, lady.” The man snaps, waving his gun at her, dismissing her, and then looking back at his prize. “Walk away.”

“You know,” Iris replies, a smooth and gliding stride bringing her forward, bringing her closer… _No. No, walk away. He’ll shoot you. He’ll kill you_ , “someone else said the same thing to me some months past. More or less anyway; I believe he was a little more eloquent in his speech. Impressively so, considering he was highly intoxicated at the time.” _Iris, run. Please, run. I don’t want you to die._ “I confess, I am a little tired of hearing people decide what is or is not my business.”

The man growls, obviously irritated and short on patience; he turns around, taking aim. She could run, save her own skin, but her feet won’t move. _Run_ , her mind whispers, insistent, but she doesn’t. She can’t. This man has a gun pointed at Iris. He’s going to shoot her. He’s going to kill her… _No, please, no…don’t hurt her._

“Last chance, lady.” He says. “Walk away.”

“You first.” Iris answers, without humor, without a smile; only cold conviction in her voice. The dark sunglasses make it impossible to see her eyes, to read her beyond the set line of a jaw and the steady, unwavering forward movements. In all white, eyes hidden, head wrapped in a thick scarf, she looks different. Calm, collected, angelic. Pure, flawless, innocent.

It happens very fast. So fast. Too fast. Her eyes move quickly, rapidly, trying to take it all in without blinking, without missing even a moment of it. The sharp glint of a knife, barely visible before disappearing into the man’s gut. Quick, fast, smooth. He yells out, pained, surprised, clutching with one hand at the wound—it’s bleeding…it’s bleeding a lot—while the other tries to keep a grip on his gun. Iris’ other hand striking out; the gun hitting pavement and clattering to the side. The knife again, now with a sleek red smear across its blade, disappearing inside him, again, and again, and again, and again…

She keeps watching, but she stops counting. She makes it to seven times, seven times she watches the knife pull out and then sink back into the man’s body, and then she gives up.

“I am sorry you had to see that.” Iris says, very quietly, wiping the blade on her pants; Selina thinks to tell her it will leave a stain, but that is a ridiculous thing to say. Virgin white has become devil’s red, in various patterns, shapes, a little across the left cheek, some castoff along her lower lip…an artist’s canvas, with fast, furious brush strokes, erratic tempo, without control, without a thought or pattern. Disorganized, and yet deliberate. Messy, and yet composed. An angel turned demon, a harmless ghost turned violent monster, a dream turned nightmare.

She stares, watching as Iris pockets the knife, adjusts her scarf and glasses, and looks at her. At least, she thinks Iris is looking at her. She still can’t see her eyes.

“May I suggest you find something to eat, before you try and take on the next person sent to kill you?” Iris comments, silk-smooth voice, a playful tilt to the head, and something that resembles, but isn’t quite, a smile on her lips.

She watches, mute, as the older woman turns and walks away, disappears almost as swiftly as she appeared, a red and white speck on the dark grey canvas of Gotham streets. Black, grey, and the slowly pooling mass of red at her feet. Shades of life, shades of death. And here she stands, in the middle of it. A crossroads at her feet, one road leading to the left and one road leading the right. Does she go one way, or does she go another?

She does what she’s best at. She runs.

***

She sits on a doorstep, beneath an overhang that’s bent in the wrong place, right above her head. The rain she’s supposed to be shielded from is dripping on her head, down the back of her neck, making a puddle on the pavement in front of her. She’s not terribly wet, but she’s cold. The rain is dribbling down the back of her neck, sneaking beneath her shirt, leaving cold paths down her skin. She could move. She doesn’t.

The puddle reflects her face. Sort of. The reflection isn’t perfectly clear; the details aren’t there, and she can see the pavement through the pool. The street is more distinct, even in her own reflection, and it’s fitting. It’s appropriate. She is nothing. She’s disappearing, bit by bit, dissolving away. Eventually, there will be nothing left.

“What do you see?”

This is becoming a habit. A strange habit, one she didn’t start, but she isn’t putting an end to it. She wanders the streets, from one end of Gotham to the next, slums to white-gated communities, sometimes staying for an hour, sometimes staying for a night. And somehow or another, Iris finds her. They don’t always talk. Usually, they just sit together in silence. It’s a soft and subtle reminder, for better or for worse, that she isn’t alone.

“A skinny little street rat.” She whispers, staring down with empty eyes. She hates what she sees, but it’s not the puddle’s fault. It’s not the rain’s fault. It’s just showing what is there to show. “No past. No present. And no future that doesn’t involve a bullet to the head.”

Iris stays silence for a few minutes. The rain falls around them, _plink, plink, plink_. Two more drops fall into her hair; these trickle down her cheek, like tears. She wonders if her tears are cold too.

“That is an unfortunate image.” Iris finally says. She feels gloved fingertips gliding across her cheek, wiping the stray drops away. It’s a brushing caress, a butterfly’s kiss. It’s fire across her skin, seeping down into the cells, nestling deep, spreading warmth like sunshine on a spring morning, and it happens. She feels it, again. This…this burning impulse…

“The night we met,” she whispers, “I wanted to die. I don’t know why, I didn’t care how, I just wanted to die. To have it all— _all_ of this—end. I thought you were Death, and I was ready. Open arms, ready to go, everything.”

Her eyes flicker up, then drop back down. _No._ She can’t. She can’t look at her, not now. “When you touched me…” her voice catches tight in her throat, twisting, knotting, strangling her for a moment, “I thought…I felt…I wanted to grab you. Hold onto you. Climb into your lap, into your arms, and just…just stay there.”

She feels the tears, a slow-building burn at the back of her eyes. “…And I thought you might let me.”

The silence is agonizing. They’ve been here before, sitting side by side, with Silence the third party between them, but right now, she can’t do it. She can’t stomach it, swallow it…can’t handle it. She doesn’t expose her heart. She keeps it hidden, buried, protected. She just stripped the walls down, opened herself up, raw, unprotected, and now—

“You do realize the problem with your theory, yes?” Iris inquires, breaking the silence with the tone of one who is discussing the weather forecast. She’s not sure whether she feels insulted, curious, or something in between. All she can do is look and offer a curious look in place a verbal inquiry. Her throat is locked like a safe and she can’t crack it.

“You never tested it.”

***

The rain doesn’t come for a while, but the temperature drops. She doesn’t know why. It’s not winter. Not that there is a distinct difference between Gotham winter and Gotham spring, but relatively warmer temperatures—barring a rainy day that effectively drops the temperature by twenty degrees—usually herald the arrival of spring. Winter, it seems, refuses to loosen its grip on the city this year. She wonders if it will be this way for many years to come.

The slums and less-reputable areas are abuzz with rumors. Gossip lines the alleyways and wraps around every corner. She hears it, from the rooftops and quiet little places she lingers, long enough to catch her breath, never more than five minutes, and it weighs in her chest like lead, like iron chains. Penguin is looking for her. He’ll keep looking for her, to prove a point, to emphasize the penalty for defying the King. The streets are no longer safe. Her “home” has turned against her. People in this world are desperate, hungry, willing to walk barefoot through Hell just to get to tomorrow in one piece. She isn’t safe. There is no one on her side.

She runs. She runs day and night, night and day, just to run. She has to go somewhere, anywhere at all. She attracts attention, running through the crowds as though the Devil himself is on her heels, pushing people out of her way, running, running, running. People yell at her, curse her, tell her to watch where she’s going. She barely hears it, any of it. She just wants to go home.

_Iris._

The manor is still dark. She wriggles her way through the bars; there’s no energy left in her throbbing legs to jump a fence that gouged her on the last attempt. The driveway has never looked longer, never seemed a wide stretch of gravel and stone separating her from the destination. She trips a couple times, in her haste. The scrapes on her knees and bare hands mean nothing. The throb of her healing wound is background noise. She can’t stop. She has to keep going. She has to get home.

Darkness, all around…and then, in a window, farthest to the left, a candle. A candle is burning in the window, a little beacon of light, stretching out with gentle fingers, inviting, guiding, beckoning. _Home._

Scaling the house is relatively easy; there’s a balcony for support, and the night is dry, without moisture to slow her down or make the ascent dangerous. The soft curtains brush her fingertips when she slips through the window, nudges the fabric aside, sets a cautious foot to the carpet, one first and then the other, and waits. The fire is crackling in the hearth, casting shadows over the room. Shakta is curled up on the rug, white fur tinged gold, fast asleep. In the armchair, facing away from the window, she can hear the softest breaths and the barest rustle as fingers turn the pages of a book.

“Welcome home, Selina.”

Iris is dressed in the blue dressing gown again. Selina likes that gown. The silk is soft beneath her fingertips, smooth and gentle against her cheek as she presses close to one leg and wraps her fingers around the other. Soft, smooth, warm. She inhales slowly, breathing it all in. Peppermint. The peppermint oil Iris uses on her skin after a bath. She draws another breath, deeper this time. The aroma fills her nostrils, clouds her senses, a sweet state of dizzying haze.

Above her, she hears the book close, rest on the small table, and then two slender hands are in her hair, sliding through honey curls, brushing here, massaging there, stroking, caressing, soothing. And she clings, clutches, begs and pleads without words. _Let this be it. Let this be home. Keep me close. Please, don’t send me away._

“He’s going to kill me.” She whispers, fingers fisting tight within the silk. _I’m scared. I can’t do this by myself._

Iris’ hands run down to her shoulders, catching firmly and guiding her upward, from her knees to semi-upright, closer, closer…she waits while Selina drapes herself over her lap, fits herself into the crevices and open space in the chair, and buries her head against a thin shoulder, then kisses her forehead, twice.

“He can try."


End file.
